Cell therapy and tissue engineering is developing toward clinical applications for the repair and restoration of damaged or diseased tissues and organs. In particular, the development of vascular grafts is a major goal in the field of cardiac and peripheral vascular surgery. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the first world. The standard of care, the autograft, is not without serious morbidity. Patients with systemic disease, leaving no appropriate autograft material or having already undergone autografts, numbering 100,000 a year in the United States alone, have few autograft options.
Researchers have thus been studying synthetic grafts for over 30 years. A major challenge is providing graft materials that are biocompatible, i.e., nonthrombogenic, nonimmunogenic, mechanically resistant, and have acceptable wound healing and physiological responses (e.g., vasoconstriction/relaxation responses, solute transportation ability, etc.). Furthermore, tissue graft materials should be easy to handle, store and ship, and be commercially feasible.
Vessels have two principal failure modes: mechanical and biological, caused by thrombosis within the vessel and subsequent occlusion and/or cellular ingrowth. Synthetic vessels having material properties capable of withstanding arterial pressure are commonplace, making the search for non-thrombogenic materials the prime research interest. Endothelial cells obtained from the patient have been shown to decrease the thrombogenicity of implanted vessels (Williams et al., 1994, J. Vasc. Surg., 19:594-604; Arts et al., 2001 Lab Invest 81:1461-1465).
Endothelial cells are of critical importance in establishing a non-thrombogenic cell lining within synthetic grafts. Thus, it is desirable to achieve rapid cellular adhesion in or on a permeable matrix, scaffold, or other permeable cell substrate material in a matter of minutes or hours with an instrument that lends itself to the operating room environment, maintains a sterile barrier, is easy to use, and produces consistent graft results.
Currently, there are four main approaches for meeting these requirements, but with limited success: (i) the use of decellularized tissue materials; (ii) the use of a self-assembly mechanism, wherein cells are cultured on tissue culture plastic in a medium that induces extracellular matrix (ECM) synthesis; (iii) the use of synthetic biodegradable polymers, onto which cells are subsequently seeded and cultured in a simulated physiological environment; and (iv) the use of biopolymers, such as a reconstituted type I collagen gel, which is formed and compacted with tissue cells by the application of mechanical forces to simulate a physiological environment (see, e.g., Robert T. Tranquillo, 2002, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 961:251-254).
Pressure gradients involving transient high pressures have been used to deposit cells onto a permeable scaffold by a sieving action, i.e., providing a bulk flow and using a substrate or scaffold material having pores smaller than the cell population, thus capturing cells in the matrix (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,781; Williams et al., 1992, J Biomed Mat Res 26:103-117; Williams et al., 1992, J. Biomed Mat Res 28:203-212.). These captured cells have been shown to subsequently adhere to the scaffold material, but with only limited clinical applicability due to failure to fully meet the requisites for successful grafts discussed above, i.e., biocompatibility, mechanical strength, and necessary physiological properties.
Beginning in the late 1970s, endothelial cell seeding was employed experimentally to improve the patency of small diameter, polymeric vascular grafts to counteract adverse reactions. Since that time, advances have been made toward this goal, with the majority of the focus on engineering a biological or a bio-hybrid graft.
Endothelial cells are more complex than was originally believed in that they do not merely create a single cell lining on the lumenal surface of blood vessels. Endothelial cells also release molecules that modulate coagulation, platelet aggregation, leukocyte adhesion, and vascular tone. In the absence of these cells, e.g., in the case of the lumen of an implanted synthetic polymeric vascular graft, the host reaction progresses to eventual failure. Loss of patency within the first thirty days post-implantation is due to acute thrombosis. This early stage failure is a consequence of the inherent thrombogenicity of the biomaterial's blood-contacting surface, which is non-endothelialized. To date, the only known completely non-thrombogenic material is an endothelium; any other material that comes into contact with the bloodstream is predisposed to platelet deposition and subsequent thrombosis. The long-term failure mode of small diameter polymeric vascular grafts is anastomotic hyperplasia leading to a loss of patency. The precise mechanisms behind initiation of anastomotic hyperplasia are still being defined; however, endothelial cell and smooth muscle cell dysfunctions and improper communications are likely involved.
Early workers in the field of small diameter graft development sought to promote graft endothelialization and, thereby, increase patency by transplanting a varying degree of autologous endothelial cells onto vascular grafts prior to implantation. This process has become known as endothelial cell seeding (partial coverage relying on continued cell proliferation) or cell sodding (full coverage). Seeding refers to a process which includes preclotting prosthetic surfaces with endothelial cells in platelet rich plasma (PRP). Sodding, by comparison, refers to a process which includes plating endothelial cells onto a pre-established PRP clot. Sodded graft surfaces are typically prepared utilizing a two-step procedure. First, PRP is clotted onto a graft, incubated for an effective period of time and then washed with culture media. Second, the PRP coated graft is plated with endothelial cells. In contrast, seeded graft surfaces are typically prepared using a one-step plating procedure, whereby endothelial cells suspended directly in PRP are plated onto a graft surface. Accordingly, in a sodded graft, endothelial cells are plated onto the surface of a PRP clot, whereas endothelial cells are plated within the PRP clot in a seeded graft. Rupnick, et al., 1989, J Vascular Surgery 9(6):788-795.
The underlying hypothesis is fairly simple; that is, by promoting the establishment of the patient's own endothelial cells on the blood contacting surface of a vascular prosthesis, a “normal” endothelial cell lining and associated basement membrane, together known as the neo-intima, will form on the graft and counteract the rheologic, physiologic, and biomaterial forces working synergistically to promote graft failure. After 30 years of research in this area, including promising animal data, this simple hypothesis has not yet yielded a clinical device.
The failure modes with endothelial-seeded grafts have been identical to untreated polymeric grafts, namely thrombosis and intimal hyperplasia. The failure modes, at least partially, are linked to the lack of a functional endothelial layer, neo-intima, on the lumenal surface of the graft and/or abnormal endothelial and smooth muscle cell direct and indirect communication. These failures in early human trials came despite successful demonstrations of seeded grafts developing into a cell lining development. These data show that neo-intimal formation on polymeric vascular graft lumenal surfaces in animal models occurs by endothelial cell proliferation from perianastomotic arteries, the microvessels of graft interstices, or circulating progenitor endothelial cells not strictly from the seeded cells.
A potential source for endothelial cell seeding is microvascular endothelial cells (MVEC). Williams et al. pioneered both freshly isolated and cultured human, canine, rabbit, rat, bovine and pig endothelial cells, specifically MVEC, in their laboratory to study cellular function. The source for human MVEC was aspirated tissue from cosmetic liposuction. Two separate protocols for human fat MVEC isolation were used depending on the end use of the cell population. The protocols differed in isolation complexity from a simple, operating room-compatible procedure for immediate sodding of human or animal grafts to a more elaborate procedure if the MVEC will be subsequently cultured.
The isolation of human MVEC has been enhanced by the use of liposuction to obtain samples of human fat. The process of aspirating fat through a liposuction cannula dissociates subcutaneous fat into small pieces which boosts the efficacy of the digestion process. The fat may be digested with collagenase (4 mg/cc) for 20 minutes, at 37° C. which releases >106 cells per gram of fat. These MVEC can be separated from the fat by gradient centrifugation. The MVEC will form a pellet and can subsequently be resuspended in culture medium after discarding the supernatant. These cells have undergone routine characterization to determine the cellular makeup of the primary isolates. A majority of the cells isolated via this procedure are endothelial cells due to their expression of von Willebrand antigen, lack of expression of mesothelial cell specific cytokeratins, synthesis of angiotensin converting enzyme, prostacyclin and prostaglandin E2, synthesis of basement membrane collagens and the morphologic expression of micropinocytic vesicles.
A human clinical trial was undertaken to evaluate endothelial cell transplantation in patients requiring peripheral bypass. During the trial, large quantities of endothelial cells were placed directly on the lumenal surface of an ePTFE graft. To improve cell deposition, all grafts were pre-wetted in culture medium containing autologous serum. Cells were suspended in the same medium at a density of 2×105 cells/cm2 graft lumenal area. This solution was held at a cross-wall, or transmural, pressure gradient of 5 psi to force cells onto the surface, a process termed pressure sodding. After institutional approval, 11 patients were enrolled and received the experimental graft. During surgical prep, the patients underwent liposuction to remove approximately 50 grams of abdominal wall fat. The fat was processed using the aforementioned procedure and the resulting cell population was pressure sodded on the intended graft and immediately implanted. After more than 4 years of follow-up, these grafts have maintained a patency rate similar to that of saphenous vein grafts.
Pressure gradients involving transient (<1 min.) relatively high pressures (250 mmHg) have previously been used to deposit cells onto a permeable scaffold by a sieving action, i.e., providing a bulk flow and using a substrate or scaffold material having pores smaller than the cell population, thus capturing cells in the matrix (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,781; Williams et al., 1992, J Biomed Mat Res 26:103-117; Williams et al., J Biomed Mat Res 28:203-212.) However, despite the aforementioned advances, clinical coronary applicability has been limited to date because the vessels do not maintain sufficiently cohesive non-thrombogenic surfaces; research has focused on additional maturation time in vitro.
Endothelial cells are of critical importance in establishing a non-thrombogenic cell lining. In addition, a need still exists for an efficient and reliable method for producing endothelial cell linings on a synthetic graft in an operating room setting, and the current invention provides a solution. It is desirable to achieve rapid cell adhesion in or on a permeable matrix, scaffold or other permeable cell substrate material in a matter of minutes or hours with an instrument that lends itself to the operating room environment, maintains a sterile barrier, is easy to use, produces consistent graft results, and is inexpensive. The present invention enables the isolation of large quantities of endothelial cells from fat tissue and the rapid cell sodding of synthetic grafts, and enables automation and adhesion of cells in a turn-key, operating room-ready instrument for the rapid sodding of the graft. This invention will likely have other applications in addition to the lining of grafts for implantation.